Presence of Human Friends and Pet Dogs as Moderators of Autonomic Responses to 
Stress in Women. 

K. Allen, J. Blascovich, J. Tomaka & R. Kelsey. Journal of 
Personality and Social Psychology, 1991, Vol. 61, No. 4, 582-589.


In this study, Dr. Allan compared physiolgoical stress responses to a stressful 
task undertaken in (a) the presence of a close friend and (b) the presence of 
the subject’s pet dog. The hypothesis was that subjects would perceive their 
friend as an 'evaluative’ companion and their dog as a 'non-evaluative’ 
companion and therefore their authonomic physiological responses during the task 
would be greater in the presence of their friend than when their dog was 
present.
A convenience sample of 45 adult female dog owners was recruited by 
advertisement. The task presented to participants first in the laboratory and 
then two weeks later in their homes, was a standard psychological stressor-to 
count rapidly backwards from a four digit number (in groups of 3s and 7s, in the 
laboratory, and 13s and 17s in the home setting). When performing the task at 
home, the women subjects were allocated randomly to one of three conditions: 
with dog present: with friend present: with neither dog nor friend present 
(alone condition). The experimenter was present at all times, both in the 
laboratory and at home. Autonomic reactivity was measured by skin conductance 
response, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and pulse rate.
Results showed that in the 'friend present’ condition, stress responses were 
stronger and task performance poorer than in the 'alone’ condition or in the 
'dog present’ condition. Subjects carrying out the task with the dog present 
showed less physiological reactivity during the task than either of the other 
two groups.
This is interpreted as evidence that pet dogs are perceived as non-evaluative 
presence while performing a stressful mental task and friends as an evaluative 
presence and that this difference in perception accounts for the differential 
autonomic responses in the conditions studied.

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